Women of Virtue: A Corrective to Ancient Prejudice

Proverbs 31:29 declares: "Many daughters have done virtuously, but thou excellest them all."

History has treated woman with severe injustice. Ancient voices—from pagan philosophy to church fathers like Chrysostom—branded her a "necessary evil" and "domestic peril." Italian, German, and English proverbs competed in contempt, suggesting women were the source of all calamity.

Yet Scripture itself contradicts this calumny. While the devil employed woman in humanity's fall—through Hagar's jealousy, through Bathsheba's seduction of David, through Herodias's manipulation unto John the Baptist's beheading—we must "deal fairly with woman."

Where were men at Christ's crucifixion? The favored disciples forsook Him and fled. Where were women? They clung constantly to Jesus, ministered self-denyingly to His needs, watched patiently at His cross, and never insulted the God-man despite their suffering.

Proverbs speaks truth: "Many daughters have done virtuously." Not a sparse few, but a glorious galaxy of consecrated women to whom Church and world remain indebted. These women became what they were through personal effort—not circumstance or privilege. They reasoned: "The thing is right, reasonable, desirable; circumstances demand it; therefore with all my heart I will do it or fail in the effort."

This is the portrait of virtue: intentional, sacrificial, persistent excellence.